


Nonfunctional

by theunwillingheart



Series: The Grown-Ups Go to War [2]
Category: Young Wizards - Diane Duane
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 07:50:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10986609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theunwillingheart/pseuds/theunwillingheart
Summary: Things don’t work the way they should.Their universe is falling apart.Spoilers for Book 8.





	Nonfunctional

**Author's Note:**

> “So work fast. We’ll do the same, for as long as we can. We’ll set you up with all the automatic manual assistance we can before we become **nonfunctional**.”—Tom Swale, _Wizards at War_
> 
> This is something of a successor to “Five Times Mr. Millman Wasn’t on Errantry (and One Time it Didn’t Matter)”. You don’t absolutely need to have read that fic to understand this, but some material from that story is relevant to this one.
> 
> Disclaimer: Diane Duane is the true author of ~~these little pieces of paper torture~~ the Young Wizards novels; I’m just pretending.

 

It’s evening of the day they spent driving around in Tom’s Nissan, calling up the draft.  They’ve finally made it back home.

Tom is spent, and Carl can clearly tell.  “Go for a brief walk,” Carl suggests.  “Take some time to recharge.  I know that a bit of quiet time makes you more efficient.  I’ll unload the groceries while you’re gone, and we’ll resume as soon as you get back.”

Tom is grateful.  He’s not sure how long he can maintain his composure, and he can’t afford to lose control in front of Carl.  Despite all outward appearances, it’s Tom—contemplative, academic, works-from-home Tom—who is usually the stronger of the two of them.  He’s normally the core, the emotional grounding-point for their partnership.  If Tom loses his cool, Carl will as well, and they cannot allow that to happen.

Tom wanders aimlessly through the familiar neighborhood, trying to process the reactions he and Carl have had to sit through.  Some of the young wizards they’d talked to had been scared.  Some had been angry.  Some had thought it was a joke, at first, then gradually grown deathly still as they realized that it wasn’t.

He’s so caught up in his thoughts that he doesn’t realize he’s made it to Nita’s house until it’s too late.  All of a sudden, Harry Callahan is before him, a questioning look on his face.

“Tom, hey,” he says, “I was just heading over to your place.  Any idea what planet my daughters have-” he catches the look on Tom’s face.  “What’s the matter?”

Tom takes a deep breath.  “It swung the wrong way, Harry.”

It takes a moment for the phrase to register.  “You mean—”

Tom runs a hand through his hair.  “We tried an intervention, a vast collection of Seniors from all across the local galaxies.  It didn’t work.  We thought we were doing the right thing, but,” his mouth twists in anger, “we were just playing right into Its hands.”

Harry looks stunned.  “But what does that mean for us, locally?”

Tom lets out a bitter laugh.  “It means that the young ones are going to war.”  Then, in a tone more harsh than is strictly necessary, “And now, thanks to our failure, you stand to lose what little family you have left, if not the entire world you live in.”  Tom sets his jaw, clenches his fists, and braces himself for yelling, if not a physical assault. 

But it doesn’t come.  Tentatively, he looks up to meet Harry’s eyes.

The look of forgiveness and compassion that he sees there takes the breath out of him.  And it’s this, this, _this_ that finally breaks him.  His eyes blur with tears, and he finds himself sinking slowly to kneel on the sidewalk.  Harry crouches down and puts his arms around him.

“ _No_ ,” Tom protests weakly, in a voice stretched high and thin, “no, no, no.”  But he doesn’t move to push Harry away, and Harry doesn’t let go.  Eventually the shuddering sobs subside, and they back away from each other and stand up.

“It would have been easier if you’d shouted at me,” mumbles Tom, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking down at the pavement.

“Hmm, maybe,” says Harry, “but we both know that what’s easy isn’t always what’s right.  And anyway, I think I’ve hollered at you enough, over the past couple of years.”  He grimaces.  “Sorry about that, by the way.”

Tom waves off the apology.  “Thank you,” he says.  “I needed a bit of relief.”

Harry nods.  “We all need some of that, from time to time.  Just do whatever you can.  I’ll do what little I can, and we’ll save the blaming for someone else, alright?”

“Okay.  Thanks again.”  Tom musters a smile, then turns and walks back to his house to do what needs to be done.

 

* * *

 

Several days later, they say farewell to Robert and resume what they’ve been doing for the past few nights.

Carl reaches into his claudication for his manual.  Tom retrieves his manual from the dining room table—his claudication is no longer operational.

Then they sit together in the living room and take calls.

Carl opens his book to the back, where countless pages are filled with flashing red paragraphs.  He points to the first one.

“This is Senior-on-standby C. Romeo,” he speaks into his manual, “responding for a consultation.”

“Carl, Carl, oh, thank goodne-” the adolescent speaking through the pages abruptly stops to clear his throat, then continues.  “This is S. Williams, interim co-Senior for the East Coast.  I require an advice.”

Carl chuckles.  “Loud and clear, Senior.  What seems to be the problem?”

“I’m heading up the team charged with the hydro intervention for the Boston floods,” the young man replies.  Carl flips to the front of his manual to scan the précis.  “We commenced with a combination runoff/ percolation enhancement.  This seemed to be working at first, but partway through the spell we encountered some resistance harbor-side.  We tried to get in touch with our cetacean contact, but I think she’s busy handling the boating accident off of Chesapeake Bay.”

“Alright.”  Carl pinches the bridge of his nose.  “Could you send me the energy read-outs from the most problematic coordinates?”

“Thank you.  Just a minute.”

While Carl waits for his contact to pull the relevant data, he can hear Tom assisting with another case.  “I would assess the team carefully for conflict of interest,” Tom is murmuring.  “Often there’s failure of start-up with the psychotropic stuff if there isn’t clarity of intent on your side.”

“Carl?” says the voice from Carl’s manual.  “I think I’ve sent most of what you asked for.”

Carl looks down and finds that several tables have been appended to the précis.  “Got it.  Thanks.  Give me a moment to troubleshoot.”

They continue working that way for several hours, offering whatever expertise remains to them while they still can.

As usual, the worst calls come when they start to tire.

Carl looks up from a leisurely consult at the sound of screaming coming from Tom’s manual.

“I require an advice, please, _please_!” cries a girl’s voice.  There are shrieks and shouts in the background.

Tom looks at Carl, who cranes his neck to read the précis in Tom’s book.  It’s the wildfires in New Mexico.

“There’s a team of us, eight in total—Get out from there!  Get _out_ , it’s gonna-” There are some crashing noises, then the sound of coughing.  “Okay, we’re… we started out with covert support of the local firefighters.  Then the firefighters got _trapped_.  We had to split up—four went to free the firefighters.  The rest of us are trying to keep the flames from reaching the Los Alamos Labs.  But only Emily has any experience with this type of pyro work, and her approach isn’t calibrated for simultaneous shielding!”

Tom looks weary to the point of sorrow.  “I don’t trust myself on this one, Carl.  It’s getting harder and harder to work out solutions—I don’t have the speed.”  He rubs his forehead.  “I have a bit of a jumping-off point—a variation on Davidson’s Minor Enthalpy…”  He pages through his manual, clearly at a loss. “…but I don’t think I can make the necessary adjustments.  I’m… I’m slowing down.”

“Okay.  Okay.  That’s alright.  Let me take a shot at this.”

Carl turns to the work pages at the back of his manual and begins to outline a spell based on the boundary conditions given in the précis.  Tom’s idea is a good one ( _Still elegant, as always_ , Carl thinks admiringly), but it’s complex work.  Carl writes as fast as he can, trying to ignore the distress of the voices coming from Tom’s manual, the sound of the air hissing through his teeth, the feel of sweat trickling down his back.  Every so often, Tom will make a suggestion, and Carl will take the idea and expound upon it.  Finally, after what feels like days of writing but is really only a matter of minutes, Carl concludes with the wizard’s knot.

“Good, _good_ ,” says Tom, who then turns back to his manual.  “Sarah, we’re sending something over that should do a lot toward managing both of your crises.”

“Oh my—thank you, thank you, _thank you_ -” Sarah breaks off to gather her fellow wizards for the recitation.  Carl and Tom sit unmoving, joining in on the listening silence at the other end of the page as the words they’d written are read.

The silence is broken by a collective sigh of relief.  “That did it,” Sarah whispers.  “That… you saved us.  You saved us.”

Tom and Carl lean back in unison.  “Good,” croaks Carl.  “Glad… glad we could help.”

Tom wipes a hand across his forehead.  “Romeo’s Dynamic Quenching,” he proposes.

“Swale’s.”  Carl closes his eyes.  “It was mostly your idea.”

“Alright then, Romeo-Swale’s,” Tom amends.  “Romeo-Swale’s Dynamic Quenching.”

The respite doesn’t last long.  Their manuals are still filled with flashing paragraphs.  But they take the consults one at a time, now, working together by necessity.  There are more calls filled with screaming voices, a few filled with terrified whispering.  The worst call of the night is the one they take too late.

“They’re all gone,” says a girl, sounding numb.  And then, in the most terrible voice they have ever heard, “It’s my turn, now.” 

The connection drops.

Carl covers his face.

“Coffee,” Tom says bleakly, getting up.  “I’ll go make some more.”

A few calls later, Carl notices that Tom has stopped contributing suggestions.  He looks over.

Tom shakes his head.  “It’s no use, Carl.”  His manual is closed on his lap.

Carl swallows.  Tom cuts him off before he can open his mouth to speak.  “I won’t,” Tom says firmly.

Carl observes the circles under Tom’s eyes, the shaking of his hands.  “You’re dead on your feet.”

Tom laughs, but the laugh is hollow.  “I’m sitting down, Carl.”

“You know what I mean.”

Tom takes a deep breath in; it shudders on the way out.

“I’ll still be here when you wake up, Tom,” Carl promises.

“Mm-hm.”  Tom looks away, drums the fingers of his left hand on his knee.  “But I won’t be.”

Carl doesn’t know what to say to that other than to repeat himself.  “I’ll still be here.”

No reply.

“Sleep, Tom,” Carl says softly.  “You… you did good.”

Tom glances at Carl once, then tilts his head back and lets his eyes fall closed, as if being released from a spell.

_No_ , cries a voice in the back of Carl’s mind, _stay awake with me.  You keep me solid; you keep me sane; I can’t do this alone; stay awake; stay awake with me…_

Carl quiets the voice and continues working.  Wizards are supposed to mean what they say, and he meant that; he meant it; he did.

 

* * *

 

Tom is awakened by dogs licking his feet and face.

“Mmff, okay, guys, I’m awake…”  He pushes Annie off of him, then sits up and straightens out the painful crick in his neck.  Sleeping on the couch—what had he been _thinking_?

The dogs have started working on Carl, but Carl’s always been an absurdly heavy sleeper.  “Carl,” Tom says, yawning and shaking Carl’s shoulder, “come on, you’re going to be late for work.”

“Mmff,” Carl blinks lazily awake, takes a deep breath in.  He rubs his eyes.  “ _Dai_ ,” he mutters drowsily.

“ _Die?_ ”  Tom chuckles awkwardly.  “Hey man, no one likes getting up for work, but there’s no need to shoot the messenger.”

At that, Carl jerks up, startled, and stares at Tom in alarm.

Tom has no idea what to make of this.  He looks around, then catches a glimpse of a large book lying on the floor at Carl’s feet.

“Huh?”  Tom stoops to pick it up.  It’s covered in a graceful, scrawling script.  “Woah.  Neat.  Carl, you never told me you could read Arabic.”  He looks back at Carl.

On Carl’s face is a terrible look of pain, as if Tom had kicked him.  But all Carl says is, “I can’t.”  He takes the book gently from Tom’s hands, watching Tom’s face as if looking for something.  “Thank you for, uh, for waking me up.”  He walks off to get showered and changed.

_Weird._   “Carl, is something the matter?”

Carl turns around and just looks at him, for a moment.

“Yeah,” he says finally.  “Things are… a bit tense.  I’m afraid I’m going to be a bit tense, too.  But listen, Tom.”  Carl pauses, glances away and back again.  “None of it is your fault, okay?  And I… I apologize in advance.”

Tom watches in bewilderment as Carl ascends the stairs.

The rest of the morning and early afternoon pass in a daze.  Tom tries to work on his articles, but he keeps staring into space and nodding off at his desk.  He feels as though he hasn’t slept for a week, though he has no idea what could have made him so tired.

_Forget this_ , he thinks, after an hour wasted trying to write one paragraph.  _I’m not going to get anything done at this rate._   He changes into sleep clothes and crawls into bed, intending to take a short nap.

It’s dark when he wakes up.  He jolts up to check the time on his bedside clock: 8:38PM.

_Oh great_ , he thinks, _a full day, wasted.  I’m going to have to work extra fast over the next few days if I want to meet my deadlines._

He swings out of bed, then pauses at the sound of voices coming from the direction of the dining room.

_Well of course_ , he thinks, _Carl must have returned from work several hours ago.  But whom could he be talking to?_

Tom changes back into day clothes, then walks down towards the dining room.

“I think we must be some of the last Seniors left, Carl,” says a voice.  It sounds like a young woman.

A sigh.  “Yeah,” says Carl.  “Just a few of us, now.”

Tom hesitates for a moment, feeling somewhat disoriented.  _I’m still drowsy_ , he thinks.

The woman is talking again.  “I hate to bother you with a social call.  Powers know, we don’t have much time to waste.  I just… I really needed to talk to someone.”

“No, no,” Carl replies.  “Same here— I’m glad you contacted me.  It’s good to hear from someone going through it at the same time.”

Tom finds himself standing in front of the door to the garage.  _What?_ he wonders, turning slowly.  _How in the world did I end up here?_

“And Tom?  How’s he holding up?” the woman asks softly.  There is a pregnant silence.  Then she says, “Sorry, you don’t have to-”

“No,” Carl says again, “It’s okay.  It’s just… I had to put up wards.”  He sounds genuinely miserable.  “I don’t even know how I managed it, with my power levels.  I’m not sure how long I can keep it up, either— I suspect that they’re starting to develop some audio leakage.”

_What is going_ on _?_   Tom thinks, as he stumbles around, somehow unable to find the dining room.  _How can I suddenly not navigate in my own house?_   And, _What’s wrong with Carl?  What are they talking about?  Did I do something wrong?_

“Oh, no.  I’m so sorry…”  She makes a small, frustrated noise.  “I’m so sorry for all of us, right now, for all the good it does.  So much for ‘Planetary’, huh?  I feel so pathetic.”

“’Pathetic’ is not a word I would ever use to describe you, Irina,” Carl says gently.  “Honestly, we’ve never been able to figure out how you manage half of the stuff you do.  You’re incredible.”

A brief, sad laugh.  “Not after tonight, I’m not.”

“Always,” Carl says firmly.  “Always, Irina.  You can do this.”  A pause.  “I can, too.”

_Why?_   Tom is exhausted and bewildered.  _Why can’t I find them?_   He sits down with his back to the wall, listening intently to the conversation taking place beyond it, just out of his reach.

“Last night,” Irina says, like it’s a death sentence.

“Last night,” Carl echoes with determination.  “Let’s make it one for the ages, yeah?”

“Yeah.  Hang in there,” she says.  “ _Dai stihó_.”

“Mm-hm.  You go well too, Irina.”

_So sad_ , Tom thinks mournfully, not understanding.  _They’re both so sad.  I used to be able to help… Whatever has happened to me?_

The house is completely still and quiet for some moments.  Then Carl says, in a weary voice, “This is Senior-on-standby C. Romeo, responding for a consultation…”

Tom drifts into a fitful sleep.

He wakes up on the floor, the pattern of the wooden planks imprinted onto his face and arms.  He pushes himself up to his feet and tries to ignore the dreadful ache all over his body. 

He finds Carl at the dining room table, slumped forward with his head on his arms.

“Carl?  Carl?”  Carl lifts his head and blinks groggily.  “What happened last night?” Tom asks.

“Whaddya mean?”  Carl puts his head back down, evidently trying to fall back asleep.

“Last night…” Tom tries to recall what he heard, but everything is so hazy, like a dream.  _Maybe it_ was _a dream_ , he thinks, remembering how his house had turned into a maze.  “You were upset…”  He frowns, trying to concentrate, but it’s useless.

“’m always upset these days,” Carl mumbles, eyes closed.  “Work’s been stress-” his eyes fly open, and he bolts up.  He looks up to the clock on the wall and curses.  “Late _again_ — thank goodness you woke me up.”  He stands up, rubbing his back, and rushes off to get ready.

Tom sighs, runs a hand through his hair.  _No time for dreams_ , he thinks, _we’re both behind schedule._

 

* * *

 

Carl returns home from work one day to find Tom clacking away at his computer at breakneck speed.

“Oh no,” Carl says, putting his briefcase down.  “Don’t tell me you missed your deadline for the magazine article.”

“Huh?”  Tom looks up from his work.  “Oh, no, I finished that a while back.  It was a close one, though.  It’s good to finally be caught up.  No, I was working on a new idea of mine…”  He rises from his chair, stretches, and yawns.  “Take a look; tell me what you think.”

Carl bends down, starts reading the document out loud.  “ _‘So You Want to Be a Wizard_.  Prologue.  _Part of the problem_ , Nita thought, as she tore desperately down Rose Avenue-’” Carl stops, blinks.  “Wait, _Nita_?  You mean ‘down-the-street’ Nita?”

“Yeah, her,” Tom says.  “Remember those role-playing games we used to play with her and Kit?  Sometimes her little sister would tag along too…”

“Oh yeah,” Carl says, smiling.  “Brings back memories.  What got you thinking about that, all of a sudden?”

“She popped by, earlier,” Tom says.  “Caught me in the middle of my panicked deadline rush, actually.”

“And you guys started reminiscing?”

“A little more than that on her end, I’m afraid,” Tom says grimly.  “She started going on about errantry, and fixing the universe… seemed to want me to go along with it.  She was really disappointed when I wouldn’t.”

Carl frowns.  “A bit old for that, isn’t she?”

Tom shakes his head.  “That’s what I would’ve thought,” he says, “but she was taking it all so _seriously_.”  He sighs.  “Poor thing.  Life’s been pretty unkind to her, lately… and the news clearly doesn’t care a whit.  It must be all the stress, Carl, it was like… it was like she was _regressing_ , or something.”

Carl makes a small noise of sympathy.  “That really sucks.  She’s such a good kid.”

“Yeah.”  Tom looks down at the computer.  “Anyway, I felt pretty bad, after she left.  I was thinking, maybe I could write a book based on our games; it might cheer her up.  And give her something tangible to hold in her hands, as a clearer boundary between reality and fiction.”  He looks down, kicks one of the chair legs absentmindedly.  “It’s not much, but… I feel like I should do something for her.”

“I know,” Carl says.  “I want to do something for all the kids I come across, lately, as an apology for how terrible the world’s getting.”

Tom shakes his head again.  “Right?  I mean, humanity as we know it has been around for, what, 200,000 years now?  And we still can’t get our act together?”  He looks suddenly furious.  “Every generation, the adults mess up, and it’s the _kids_ who end up paying the price.  The innocent _children_!”  And before Carl can stop him, he actually draws back and punches the wall above the desk.  Then he wrings out his hand, wincing.  “Sorry.”  He flushes with embarrassment.  “That was, uh… that was a mistake.”

Carl chuckles.  “You idiot.  Give it here.”  Tom holds out his hand, and Carl begins a careful assessment, examining the skin, pressing on bones and joints.  “You shouldn’t do crazy stuff like that,” Carl admonishes him, carefully manipulating Tom’s wrist.  “You can break your hand.”  _I would know_ , he thinks wryly.  In his youth, he’d had an unfortunate tendency to punch first and ask questions later.  _I think I’m a bad influence._

Tom pulls a face.  “I think you’re a bad influence,” he says.

A chill goes down Carl’s spine.  He releases Tom’s wrist and steps back.  Tom looks at him questioningly.

“Just now,” Carl says, his mouth dry, “it was like you were reading my mind.”  He turns away, trying to shake himself out of his overpowering sense of déjà vu.

“Carl?” Tom asks behind him, “Is something wrong?”

“You’re hand’s fine,” Carl says absently, not turning around.  Then, with as much gruff humor as he can muster, “Swing harder next time.”

He walks away.

 

* * *

 

Tom is nestled into an armchair upstairs, reading a book for an upcoming review and doing his best to forget what’s on been on the TV for the past twenty-four hours.

_This is dreadful_ , he thinks, turning the page, _how does this garbage get published?_

He is shaken from his reading by the sound of what seems like every dog in the neighborhood howling outside.

Tom closes his eyes.  _So this is it_ , he thinks, _what everyone was saying would happen.  Armageddon…_

His eyes fly open at the feeling of something pressing insistently at the back of his brain, like someone knocking on the door to his mind.

_What is it?_ he wonders.  _What is this?_

_Something old,_ comes the answer.  _Something new._   He feels an understanding begin to wash over him, coloring everything.

_I could refuse it this time_ , he realizes.  _I could turn my back on it, this life of constant losing._

But he doesn’t.

_Yes,_ he says.  _Yes, I will._

And then the floodgates open.

It makes sense at last, everything.  The truth is almost more than he can bear, and he has to sit back while the Knowledge of the Art overwhelms him.  And _there_ , in a corner of his mind…

_Carl?_

_…Tom?_

Tom springs to his feet.  His body protests painfully.  “Quiet, you,” he orders it cheerfully.  “We have work to do.”  He starts toward the stairs.

He can feel tears on his cheeks.  _His, or mine?_ he wonders, as he heads down the stairs.  _Maybe it’s both of us._   He swipes a hand over his eyes, laughs giddily.  _Maybe it’s both of us._

He jogs into the living room.  There stands Carl—wizard, and partner, and dearest, dearest friend— staring out the open sliding doors at the backyard, as if seeing it for the first time.  He’s crying; they _are_ both crying; it’s fantastic.

Tom walks over to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Carl.  Together the two of them gaze in stillness upon their precious, beautiful, horrible world.

_A life of constant losing, perhaps_ , Tom thinks, _but finally and once again, the entire universe to lose._   And here, standing at his side, someone to lose _with_.

_So_ , Tom asks silently, _we’re back?_

He can feel Carl’s face stretch into one of his characteristic ferocious grins.

_Oh yes_ , he answers, _we’re_ back _._

**Author's Note:**

> “Suffer more!”
> 
> “Alright, Ms. Duane,” she said, smiling placidly, unsuspecting. “I’ll read another book.”


End file.
